1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ceramics/Egypt and Western Asia/Palestine
425px|thumb 425px|thumb 425px|thumb Palestine.-''' The most ancient Palestinian pottery is the rough “ Amorite ” ware from Lachish (Tel el-Hesi) which sometimes has wavy handles like the prehistoric Egyptian (18). Later we find actual Mycenaean pottery in Philistia (19), an interesting testimony to the truth of the legend which brings the Philistines from Crete; the fourth and fifth cities of Lachish (1 zoo-1000 B.C.) show us the first ordinary Phoenician or. Israelite pottery-buff or red lamps and bowls, the latter with the handles sometimes painted in bistre, and vases showing strong Egyptian influence; while pottery from Cyprus and elsewhere is found as in Egypt. The only remarkable later development of Palestinian pottery is the Phoenician imitation of Egyptian faience of the Saite period, of which the characteristics are well known. Some of this may actually have been madein Egypt. » The course of the potter's art in Mesopotamia and Persia appears to have run on lines of development parallel with the art in Egypt, for the country between the Tigris and the Euphrates is rich in good clays, and, wherever the invention of glass arose, its application to pottery decoration was certainly developed at an early period in Egypt and in Mesopotamia. FIG. 9.-Egyptian pottery under the Ptolemies, showing Greek influence in the shapes. Two characteristic uses of clay wares must, however, be pointed out, though they have nothing to do with vase-making. I. The Babylonian and Assyrian use of clay shaped into tablets, cylinders and prisms, to produce an imperishable record of the literature of the time. The cylinders and prisms were thrown on the potter's wheel and are consequently hollow; the circular form was then sliced down, and the surface was impressed with cuneiform MICS ASIA inscriptions, the prism, tablet or cylinder being subsequently dried and fired. 2. The architectural use of glazed bricks and slabs. While the Egyptians remained content for the most part with the application of their brilliant alkaline glazes to small and delicately-finished objects, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed an architecture decorated with glazed and coloured brickwork. The bricks were of very open texture, and the ornamental pattern or figure subjects were obtained by a strong outline in dark-coloured clay which formed a kind of cloison or boundary, the shallow cells between being filled in with coloured clays-yellow, red or white-for with coloured glazes of turquoise, green or blue, yellow and purplish brown. These glazes are obviously like the Egyptian, but they are more coarsely prepared and are always full of bubbles and consequently more or less opaque. Yet the severe simplicity of the method, the splendid colour effect, strong yet sumptuous, entitles these productions to a very high rank among all the world's work in c ay and glaze. The “ Frieze of the Archers " now in the Louvre may be mentioned as one of the finest productions of its kind, and the Louvre and British Museum ossess the finest collections of this early architectural use of glazed) and coloured clay. (See also [[1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mural decoration|MURAL DECORATION].) Coming to ordinary pottery we find that in early times well formed vases made of good clay, unglazed and unpainted, were made. Small figures of deities made of the same clay are often found. It is practically the same terra-cotta as that of the inscribed tablets. None of the forms are particularly distinctive (see fig. Io). The excavations of the French in Persia have FIG. ro.-Assyrian biscuit pottery. brought to light at Moussian in Susiana an extremely interesting painted ware, which belongs to a very early period. The decoration is usually geometrical. . The technique seems to be analogous to the Mycenaean-Greek (Fimismalerei), and the whole effect is very like that of the Greek, Late Mycenaean or Dipylon pottery. The ware is buff in colour and fine in texture, with a polished surface. The decoration is sometimes in polychrome, but usually in the grey-brown iron-glaze (P) alone. This pottery degenerates later and finally disappears (20). During the Sargonide period in Assyria (7th century B.C.) we find a polychrome faience (colours usually white and brown) obviously of Egyptian origin. It was used, not for vases, but architectonic ally for friezes, ornamental bosses, &c. Its origin may be found in Egypt under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Egyptian influence extended to the Tigris, and Babylonia had regular diplomatic relations with Egypt. In Asia this polychrome decoration in glazes continued to be used long after it had ceased FIG. I I.-Assyrian glazed and enamelled pottery. (British Museum, Nos. 1645-1647) (21). This glaze possibly contains a small amount of lead; in appearance it is not unlike the contemporary translucent blue glaze of Egypt. The Egyptian glaze certainly spread into western Asia, and we find the last specimens of it in the tiles from the destroyed city of Rhagae in Persia, which may be as late as the 13th century A.D. The lead glazes, unknown in Egypt till the late Roman period, may be of Asiatic origin, though this important point is by no means clear. REFERENCES #(1) Petrie-Quibell, Qallas and Nagada (date erroneous); #(2) Jacques de Morgan, L' Age de la pierre etdes métaux; #(3) Petrie, Diospolis Parva, frontispiece (also for “ sequence-dates " of pottery); #(4) Garstang, Itlahdsna and Bét Khalldf, pls. xxix.xxxii.; #(5) Petrie, Illahiin, pl. xii. (corr. by V. Bissing in (I4)); #(6) V. Bissing, Catalogue générale du musée de Caire, “ Die Fayencegefasse"; #(7) Petrie, Abydos, ii., frontispiece; #(8) Henry Wallis, Egyptian Ceramic Art (Macgregor Collection); #(9) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, British Museum, p. 252 ff.; #(10) Petrie, Tel-el-Amarna; #(11) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, p. 261; #(12) Petrie, Nagdda, pl. xxviii.; #(13) Petrie, Illahiin, pls. xx., xxi.; #(14) V. Bissing, Strena Helbigiana, p. 20 ff.; #(15) Garstang, El Ardbah, pls. xviii.-xxi., xxviii., xxix.; #(16) Hall, Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 143 ff. ibid. fi s. 29, 30, 69; #(17) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, pf viii.; #(18) Petrie,Tell-el-Hesy, pl. v.; #(19) Welch, Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. vi.; #(20) de Morgan, Délégation en Perse, viii. (1905); #(21) Brit. ll/Ius.: Guide to Babylonian and Assyrian Room. '''(H. R. H.)